


Things Said and Things Unsaid

by evienne



Category: Billabong Series - Mary Grant Bruce
Genre: F/M, mostly wally & tommy friendship though, which makes wally predictably uncomfortable, while they talk about wally/norah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 19:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18629479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evienne/pseuds/evienne
Summary: The evening before Wally is called to Queensland, Tommy tries to help, Norah is not-quite-oblivious, and Jim seems upset. During Billabong's Daughter.





	Things Said and Things Unsaid

Wally made a last snip and laid the scissors down.

“Well," he said, "I can’t guarantee you’d win any prizes for fashion, Barlow, but at least you’re a bit neater.”

Jim looked at the result of Wally’s labours with a grin. “I think it might be better if our shorn sheep kept his hat on. I shouldn’t go in for barbering if I were you, Wal.”

“I would try it before casting aspersions on my hard work,” Wally suggested pleasantly. “Never mind, the police aren’t likely to notice him much now. You’re a different chap, Barlow.”

“I feel one,” Barlow admitted, still with the half-incredulous look on his face that had first taken root when Jim and the others had offered to set him back on his feet. It was a matter of perpetual amazement to him that there were such people in the world. It was a notion neither Wally nor Jim took much notice of. 

They left Barlow and strolled out of the little shack to meet the girls, who had just finished stocking Barlow’s pantry for the final time.

“Here are your scissors, Nor,” Wally said, returning them to their owner. “We’re done, and it’s a beautiful job if I say it myself. Not that Jim sees it, somehow—he’s become far too particular ever since he got promoted in the War! Thinks he’s an authority on everything.” He ducked a friendly blow from Jim with a grin. “Are you ready to go back to Billabong?”

“We are,” said Norah, but Tommy shook her head.

“Would you mind much if I went straight back to Creek Cottage?” she asked in her quaint voice. “It is getting rather late, that is all, and my poor Bob will need his tea. It’s all right—I have Bosun. You needn’t worry about coming with me.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Jim, “of course we’ll go back with you. You don’t mind, fellows?”

Norah, apparently one of the ‘fellows’ in question, shook her head regretfully. “Mary-Kate will be looking out for me,” she said. “I’m awfully sorry, Tommy, but you’re right—it is late. Jim, will you come with me, and Wally can take Tommy home?”

The arrangement was approved, and soon all four were mounted. They rode together for a little while before Tommy and Wally reached the turn for Creek Cottage. Then the four horses parted in pairs and went in opposite directions, the riders waving cheerfully at each other.

“Tired, Tommy?” Wally asked as they rode off. “You and Norah have had a full day.”

“Much less full than your own,” Tommy returned. “I am only comfortably tired, as Norah would say. I’ll be glad when I find myself in bed.”

“Bed will be no bad business,” he agreed. “But Jim and I are going early tomorrow to see Barlow off. I tell you, I’m ready to see the back of him. We’ve been operating at high speed ever since we found him, and hiding it from Mr Linton hasn’t been fun.”

“No, it does make one feel so dishonest, does it not?” Tommy said. “I’ll be glad to have him gone as well.”

They rode on in silence for a little while, while the dusk began to gather and the kookaburras began laugh at each other in the eucalypts above. The track to Creek Cottage was well-worn and even Butterfly knew it by heart now—there was no need for either rider to do much. With another companion—Jim or Norah—Wally might have suggested a race to put a little more interest into the ride, but he knew it was likely that Tommy was more tired than she was willing to admit. And it was not such a bad thing for once, this slow comfortable silent trot.

Presently, however, Tommy spoke, and it was clear she had been thinking about something very different.

“Wally, is it true you are thinking of moving from Billabong?”

He frowned, a little startled, turning to look at her. The light was fading quickly, but he could see enough of her expression to make out that it was quite serious.

“Not immediately,” he said, but he felt himself colour. It was true that the idea had seemed more and more appealing—lately. “How did you hear of it?”

“Norah mentioned it,” Tommy said. “I don’t think she’s much pleased. You are not very set on it, I hope?”

“I haven’t bought a station, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said, knowing it was not.

“No, not that,” said Tommy. “I know you would have told us if you had.” She paused, then went on carefully: “I think it is more the thought that you would _want_ to leave. There aren’t any large properties so very close to Billabong, you know. You might have to move quite a distance away.”

Wally knew it very well. It made the thought of going away from Billabong that much harder to consider. And yet, after all, perhaps it would be for the best. “I can’t very well stay there all my life, Tommy.”

Tommy said nothing.

“It’s not—” He stopped, trying to arrange his thoughts and wishing he didn’t suddenly feel nervous and hot all over. There was something _judging_ in Tommy’s silence, if Tommy could ever be considered to be judging at all. “It’s not only that I’m practically living off the Lintons when I’m well able to support myself. A chap should make his own way in the world.” He paused again, then went on, somewhat desperately: “ _You_ ought to understand, you and Bob were so determined to start on your own as soon as you could, so nobody could say you were slacking.”

“You don’t slack,” Tommy objected. “Jim says he couldn’t run Billabong half as well without you. There’s nothing he wouldn’t trust you with.”

“Jim’s always talking rubbish,” Wally said, but his heart warmed all the same. “It’s the least I can do. It’s not much.”

“But they don’t want you for the work you can do for them. They love to have _you_.”

“I know that,” Wally said, wondering while he said it if he truly did. It had always seemed something incredible to him, that anybody could truly _want_ him. His brothers never had, not really; neither had his multitude of aunts. And then Jim Linton—big, quiet Jim Linton whom everybody at school admired from the first day he arrived—had offered to share his home and his family with Wally, and Wally had never wanted to leave. But it was still difficult to shake sometimes, even after years of friendship and War, that small cowardly fear that perhaps he was much fonder of them than they were of him, that perhaps he was not _wanted_ so much as—pitied.

In his sensible moments he knew the fear for the absurdity it was, but doubt came more easily these days, somehow.

“I know that,” he said again, believing it better this time. He thought of the hurt that would be in Norah’s face if ever she knew of it, and nearly hated himself. “But—it almost makes it worse, don’t you see? It isn’t that I want to go, I don’t—I get wild every time I really think about it. It’s is the only home I’ve ever really had. But it’s harder all the time to stay, feeling like this, when every day Norah—” He stopped short, clamping his lips tightly shut, horribly aware of having said far too much.

Tommy’s silence was very eloquent.

“Forget it, Tommy,” Wally said after a long moment. Another passed. “But it’s—nice—of you to care.”

“You should tell her, Wally,” said Tommy, very gently.

He felt very wretched. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

He looked fixedly through the darkness. _Why not_ indeed? She made it sound as if it were easy, when it felt hardly short of impossible.  

“Wally,” Tommy said, her voice still very, very gentle. “You will never know if you do not ask.”

“I—can’t,” he said again, stupidly. “Tommy—it’s not that simple. I’ve lived at Billabong almost all my life—all my life that counts, anyway. Don’t you see? You said it yourself. They trust me. I can’t try and take away the best thing they have when they’ve always welcomed me and looked out for me. I’d feel like a thief. I already do.”

Tommy said, voice placatory and persuasive: “Norah’s twenty-two. They must know that they can’t continue on the way they are forever.”

“I don’t believe they’ve ever thought of anything else,” Wally said stubbornly. “And I wish I hadn’t either.”

Tommy was silent, and Wally was torn between being glad that she wasn’t pressing him further and guiltily disappointed that she was no longer defending him from himself. He’d been scolding himself so continually lately that her gentle kindness was more soothing than usual.

But perhaps he’d thought too soon, because she spoke again presently:

“Does Jim know?”

Wally looked flatly away. “No.”

“You won’t tell him?”

“What good is it? I wouldn’t know how to say it, and if I did he’d only look at me differently, and I couldn’t bear that, not when—” Again, he became aware of what he was about to say, and again he broke off in a hurry.

But not quickly enough for Tommy. She was riding very close now. “Oh, Wally. So she _has_ noticed, then.”

“I don’t know,”—this miserably; Tommy’s soft sympathy more effectively breaking down his obstinate walls than any amount of cross-examination. “It might be only my fancy, but I can’t help thinking that she isn’t as natural as she used to be with me. She sits up a little straighter, a little further away, or she speaks more politely.” He turned in Tommy’s direction and demanded, almost desperately, “Have you noticed?”

“No,” said Tommy. “But perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it’s not for the reasons you think it is. Perhaps she is behaving so because she also—”

“Don’t say it.” He couldn’t explain why he hadn’t wanted Tommy to go on, but the thought seemed like something sacred, something delicate and precious that must not be spoken or dare being destroyed forever. He couldn’t risk it.

“You must not go,” Tommy said—little Tommy, who at this moment was sounding as stern as it was possible for her to. “Wally—don’t be angry with me for saying it—but it is not you, to run away from something difficult. And you won’t be any less miserable for doing it. Think of the Lintons. Do you truly believe they could be happy if you left and they could not understand the reasons why?”

“Would it be any better if they _did_?” Wally said, voice rough. Tommy was sounding all too reasonable for comfort. “I wouldn’t even be able to come back for visits and look them in the face—I couldn’t bear to see Jim and Mr Linton watching me, changing towards me—”

“Wally!”

He felt ashamed.

“You’ve been lying awake too long at night, and brooding, that’s the matter with you,” Tommy said rebukingly. “Don’t tell me I don’t know—I used to lie awake at three o’clock in England every night and make-believe all sorts of horrifying things about what might happen to Bob. It’s a wretched hour. But I was always sane again in the morning. You’re carrying your three o’clock in your pocket.” She paused, and her voice was gentle again. “Don’t let it catch hold of you, Wally. You know as well as I do that nothing could ever make Jim and Mr Linton hate you, and as for Norah—why, she is worried about you, Wally. She told me so today.”

Wally bit his lip tightly, still ashamed, and so badly wanting to ask what else Norah might have said.

Tommy’s little hand came out of the darkness and rested on his arm. “You must try,” she said.

They came in sight of Creek Cottage. Wally dismounted to unlatch the gate. Tommy rode through and he felt her gentle blue eyes on him in the darkness. Her sympathy was comforting—but it hurt a little, too.

“I’m all right now,” she said, pulling Bosun around to face him. The conversation was finished. “Thank you for seeing me back.”

Wally nodded, but said: “I’ll see you all the way in safely.”

Bob came out to meet them as they approached the house. “Is that you, Tommy?”

“Yes, Bob. And Wally is here too.”

“Hallo, Wally. Thanks for looking after Tommy. How is our private felony coming along?”

“Rather nicely,” Wally answered in as normal a voice as he could muster. “We had a barbering session today. You wouldn’t know him for the same downtrodden chap he was when Kim discovered him. Jim and I are taking him to the station early tomorrow morning.”

Bob helped Tommy dismount and took charge of Bosun’s bridle. “That’s good. You know, I can easily come as well if you’d like, or if one of you would prefer to stay at home.”

“It’s all right, but thanks all the same.” Wally made an attempt at his old grin. “Don’t bother trying to ask me for tea—Brownie’s planning my favourite cake and I can’t answer for the consequences if I’m not there to eat it!”

Bob grinned back, starting to lead Bosun to the stables. He called out a cheery “Good night!” over his shoulder. Wally looked after him and then turned back to Tommy, feeling his face sober.

“Tommy, you won’t—say—anything to Norah?”

“Of course not, Wally,” she said. “But you will think about what I said too, won’t you?”

“I’ll try,” he said, which was the best he could promise. “Thanks, Tommy. I know it’s because you care.”

He rode away slowly at first, and then kicked Butterfly into a fierce gallop as soon as he was clear of the gates. The cold autumn air stung his face and cleared his mind as Butterfly raced on and he felt a little better. Wally was by nature a cheery soul—he’d gone through almost every hour of his life (barring those black months in the War he never thought about if he could help it) with a laugh. To be anything else was something unfamiliar and terribly uncomfortable, but he could not joke his way through this.

He jumped as many fences as was prudent (and a few more which were debatably so), not wanting to bother with the trouble of opening gates, and was back in sight of the Billabong homestead almost before he’d realised it. He pulled Butterfly up and halted, just where all the lights of the big house could be best seen gleaming through the trees.

‘Home’, he’d called it for years—over ten years now, dating from that first visit when he’d only been one of Jim’s many chums. Even then, it had felt more like home that his own brother’s house. He’d slipped so easily into feeling he really belonged to the Lintons—half-believing Mr Linton was his own father, Jim his brother, and Norah—Norah—

He bit his lip and kicked Butterfly in the direction of the stables.

He walked up to the homestead a little while later, hoping to slip inside unseen. But Jim was in the hall and hailed him.

“Did you get Tommy home all right?”

“As rain,” Wally returned, relieved to find that the ride had steadied his voice. “Bob was there. He offered to come in the morning but I said it was all right.”

“Decent of him to offer. It’s not going to be a circus, dodging the police.”

“Why not?” Wally asked, trying to grin. “We’ve already got a perfectly good clown.”

Jim grinned back, but there was something odd in his face. “I’m looking at him. Are you hungry? Norah’s already eaten on account of Mary-Kate, but Dad and I waited for you.”

Wally had practically forgotten he had an appetite. Somehow dinner didn’t seem to matter much. “Thanks—you shouldn’t have. Go on, I’ll be down as soon as I’ve washed.”

Although he wasn’t hungry, he washed quickly, knowing that neither Jim nor his father would start eating if he wasn’t there. His ablutions completed, he left the bathroom, straightening his tie as he went.

As he passed Mary-Kate’s room, he caught a glimpse of Norah getting up from beside the little bed to turn the lamp down. She caught his eye and smiled a greeting.

“How is she?” he asked in a low voice, taking a half-step into the room, unable to help himself. There was always a softness about Norah’s face after she spent time with children, and he liked to see it.

“Sleeping soundly,” she answered, smoothing down the covers tucked up under Mary-Kate’s pointed chin. “I suppose I shouldn’t sit with her so long when she’s quite old enough to go to sleep herself, but she seems such a little thing. And she misses her mother.”

He watched her. “Less than if you weren’t there, I should think.”

“Oh, I’m not much of a substitute.” She bent for a moment to drop a kiss on Mary-Kate’s hair, and suddenly Wally had a vision of a room very like this one, only the child in the bed had black curls instead of red, a nose that tilted appealingly like Norah’s, and called him _Dad_. He caught his breath at the sudden fierce _wanting_ , and left the room abruptly.

Norah joined him outside a moment later, closing the door behind her. She was looking at him with the expression he had learned to dread lately—a sort of mixture of curiosity and wariness, as though she wasn’t sure what he might do next, or whether she would like whatever it was.

“I’d better get on to dinner,” Wally said, simply to break the silence, and Norah nodded in what seemed like relief.

“You must be starving,” she agreed.

He nodded back—not that he was—but neither of them moved for a moment.

“Well—be careful tomorrow,” Norah said at last, and patted his arm with a smile as she went past him.

“Good night,” he answered, shook himself, and strode down to the dining room. He scolded himself all the way.

Dinner was a mostly quiet affair—Jim seemed as disinclined for talk as Wally, and Mr Linton appeared content to read his paper in silence. Wally, ordinarily never at a loss for words, was utterly glad of it, absolutely certain that he wouldn’t be able to manage small talk tonight. Not with Jim sitting across from him and Tommy’s clear voice still ringing in his ears: _Won’t you tell Jim?_

He watched Jim serenely demolishing a steak and kidney pie for a moment or two, and felt like a criminal.

“Well,” Jim said at last, pushing away from the table. “Bed, I think. You turning in, Dad?”

“I’ll stay up a bit and keep Brownie company as she tidies up after you lot,” Mr Linton said, and settling down in his favourite armchair to fill his pipe.

“I’m done too,” Wally said, though he’d eaten less than half of what he ordinarily would. Jim’s glance flickered down to his plate in surprise, but he said nothing.

“We’ll be leaving early in the morning,” he said instead, addressing his father. “So it’s likely we won’t see you until supper tomorrow night, Dad.”

“Ride safely, boys. Good night.”

“Good night, Mr Linton,” Wally said, and followed Jim out.

They paused outside Jim’s bedroom, well clear of the dining room. “I hope Barlow has the sense to be ready by the time we get there,” said Jim.

“I think he’d be too frightened not to be,” said Wally. “Haven’t you heard what Brownie says about borrowing trouble?”

“I know. I just—oh, never mind.” Jim seemed on the brink of saying something further, but swallowed it back before it could get out. Wally shoved down a spike of unreasoning fear. “Well,” he said. “It’s going to be a long ride. Better get some sleep.”

Wally nodded. “What have you told your father?”

“Oh, something vague about a sale,” Jim said, waving his hand generally. “Honestly, Dad’s sharp; he knows we’re up to something, and he’s just decided that he doesn’t need to ask. I could probably tell him that we were spending the day in Melbourne shopping for frocks and he wouldn’t bat an eye.”

“But still,” Wally said.

“But still,” Jim agreed, and paused.

“See you in the morning?” Wally suggested.

“Yes,” Jim agreed slowly, and Wally turned to walk down to his own room.

Jim’s voice arrested him in his tracks:

“Wal.”

Wally stopped, turning. Jim hadn’t moved from his doorway, his brow furrowed, attitude oddly restive.

“You’d tell me if something happened, wouldn’t you?” he asked, voice uncertain.

Wally’s stomach twisted suddenly. “I can hardly tell you _everything_ that happens,” he said, trying to sound light.

“But if it mattered. If you thought I ought to know." 

“Of course,” he said, and wondered if he was lying to Jim.

Jim looked dissatisfied, but he nodded at Wally and went into his room, shutting the door behind him. Wally turned away and pushed into his own room, feeling worse than ever. Jim suspected something, was hurt by it, and it was unbearable to think that Wally was the cause.

 _Tomorrow_ , he promised himself as he got into bed and stared at the dark ceiling in flagrant disregard of Tommy’s advice not to brood. _It’s a long ride back. I’ll tell him everything tomorrow._

_***_

(If he was entirely honest with himself, he half-expected not to keep that promise.

But, as it turned out, he did.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. :) (The implication at the end, of course, is that Jim and Norah talked about the bull incident on their own ride home. I wrote this fic some time ago, and when I reread it I was momentarily confused as to why Jim was being weird. Which probably says more about my own recall ability than anything else, but, well...once more for clarity, eh? :D)


End file.
